//------------------------------// // Colors of the Rainbow // Story: Foggy Overcast // by Cake Sparkle //------------------------------// Cake was looking at the small village of Daffodilia from the tree line. She wondered how her own little site was doing right now, were they out playing in the snow? Asleep with the fireplaces well stocked in their brick homes? Of course they were, they were good little ponies like that. It was far too late in the night for that. Still, Daffodilia was making great progress as Cake could tell by their single lone street light and already decorated tree. They were probably expecting Christmas to happen in the next few days with the snow on the ground. All the lights in the little village were off, well, most of them. The only building left lit up was the oversized police station converted into the town's library. Cake wished she had more time to fill the library with things, but according to Yellow, the mare inside didn't seem to like reading anymore. It was late, she needed to listen to her own orders, then again… watching over the two in the dark, with the snow falling, was almost pointless… if the buffalo were moving at night then they would absolutely try to investigate the town for leads to site zero… It wouldn't hurt to just pretend to be a concerned neighbor peeking in on Twi- no. no, she couldn't. She sat down and just stared at it. Everything she had ever wanted was beyond those doors, she had never given into a chance like this before, for just a minute to pretend to be a normal pony. She shivered against the cold and held onto her lower hooves. The inside of the library was warm, in more ways than she could explain. She just couldn't resist it anymore, the clawing at the back of her mind. Cake picked herself up and slowly trotted, one hoof at a time towards the light. She knew she was a hypocrite, she knew she was not even worthy of it, considering she was even going after it instead of watching over her friends. She tried to focus on those thoughts, and the shame. But she was powerless to stop her desire.  “Hello, are you still awake?” Cake asked, gently knocking on the door. She could hear music inside but didn't want to barge in or knock too loud to seem like some kind of emergency.  There was no response. So she knocked again. “Hello… hello?” She was whispering at this point, shivering from the cold and mixture of anxiety.  The door slowly opened. Twinkle was looking at the floor in front of her, the warmth from the inside washed over Cake along with the alluring orange light from inside the Library. “I’m sorry Battle Brew… I- I shouldn't have-'' Twinkle looked up at the unicorn as her eyes bulged and she took a step back. Cake awkwardly stepped in and closed the door behind her in her magic. “I, um… saw your lights were on miss. I just came in to see if you were okay.” Cake lied. She wasn't very good at lying, probably because the emotions on her face betrayed her as she looked up at the lavender Unicorn with an almost sadistic smile.  Twinkle backed up further and further, her face becoming more and more filled with dread until she was pushed back against a table. Cake closed the door behind her without turning away from the unicorn. “Y- you are… you already wiped their memories didn't you!?” Twinkle accused.  “Um… I don't know what you're talking about ma’am. I'm just a simple traveler, I mean um… I live around here. I just don't get out very much…” Cake pretended to fix her mane as she tried to change her expression, going to a deadpan stare. “I have no idea what you are talking about.” She repeated.  “Please, please don't make me forget anymore! I don't know what you want from us…” Twinkle slid down the desk until she was sitting on the floor, covering her face with her hooves.  Cake knew the act was over. Perhaps it was dead before she had even begun to spin the lie. She sighed, then walked over to the shaking Twinkle and extended a hoof out to her. “Get up…” She commanded in an emotionless, defeated tone.  Twinkle shakily took the hoof and stood back up, still avoiding looking at the face of the intruder in front of her. Cake didn't like this; she had tried going slow. Now was the time for a bit of confidence. She placed her hoof under Twinkle’s chin and brought her to level. “I didn't come here tonight to hurt you, and I haven't talked or… messed with your friends who I am guessing are already starting to… talk about memory lapses… Aren't they?” Cake said calmly.  “Yes, and I assume you’re going to put some kind of fake memories in them. So they will go back to their normal lives… whatever we are supposed to do in this prison…” Twinkle hissed as little tears escaped her eyes as she tried to blink them away.  “My, what a shockingly accurate assumption. You are getting better, you know. You’re really starting to take to that new life. This is not something I expected you to ever do, playing music and painting in the middle of the night.” Cake scanned the room as she finally found the record player and turned it off. “Tomorrow is going to be a very, very long day. How about we go have some water in the kitchen and we can play a game?”  Twinkle winced. “A game? I- I don't understand.”  Cake pulled her hoof away and walked to the kitchen, like she had already known the layout of the library. Twinkle shakily followed behind her. “Just a little game, don't worry…” Cake said, trying unsuccessfully to reassure her.  Cake pulled two bottles of river water from the fridge and placed them onto the table, she opened her own and quickly drained it down her gullet, then slumped down in the booth opposite to Twinkle who followed after her and sat at the table herself. “What's this game, exactly?” The curious lavender unicorn asked. Her voice still trembling as her hooves shaked  Cake blinked and sat up. “You have questions you need answers to. I do too. So, the game is simple, you tell the truth and I'll tell the truth, i won't lie or tell a half truth. I will be honest and I won't skip out on facts. And you can go first, go ahead, ask.”  Twinkle tapped her hooves on the table, thinking for a moment. “W- why?” She whispered.  “Hehe.. Oh, ain't that the question I am asking myself… You see Twink- no. That's not your name. Twilight is your name. You see Twilight, you and I were sisters in arms at one point in time so I feel like I should indulge this new side of you, Twinkle as you refer to it, or, yourself I suppose.”  “Twilight? Is that my… real name?” She asked, looking over at the smaller unicorn who had raised a hoof to signal it was her turn to ask a question. “Right… I’m sorry.”  “Don't be.” Cake reached over into the saddle bag and pulled out the crown she had taken from Inkwell and laid it on the table. “Do you remember who this belongs to?”  Twinkle looked it over, memories… painful little blurts of memories washed over her. Mostly that feeling of missing a friend, a very dear friend. And one of burning fires, screams… “No, I don't know.” Twinkle rasped, looking away from it. Cake sensed her pain and quickly placed it back into her saddle bags. “My name… Why did you call me that?” She asked, looking back into Cake’s eyes. Cake groaned. “I guess there's no point in milking it out. Daffodilia is um… about two and a half years old now. You had a life before all of this. A very, very painful life that you could not return to. Everyone you knew, except I think… Tool Belt and maybe Inkwell Quill is dead, or has been missing for so long that we must assume they are dead. You wanted to start again, completely. For that we had to change your name because it was a trigger for old memories for other ponies here in this… village.” Cake looked away from her and towards the other untouched bottle. Twinkle slid it over to her.  “Has any other… strangers like me been through the town, any sightings of strange creatures?” Cake asked as she unscrewed the tap and drank some more water.  “Tool- I- no. we haven't.” Twinkle couldn't sell out her friends, even if it was obviously a lie.  Cake shook her head. “Your friends saw a bright yellow pony stalking the foals at night, didn't they?” Cake smiled at her and shook her head. “Stalking… foals? No they…” Twinkle conceded the lie. If she played dumb she figured she would force the pony in front of hers hoof to act before she could warn them. “Tool Belt came over talking about wanting to hunt Santa Claus. He asked me some questions I didn't know the answer to and I- it broke me. So I told them to leave, aggressively.”  “Not the first time you have been in a tough spot and pushed away friends Hehe” Cake laughed, recalling some old memories. “Well, it looks like there's still some Twilight Sparkle left in there. Okay, your turn.”  Twinkle looked deep into Cake’s eyes. “Please don't hurt them, please… please!”  Cake reached forward and took Twinkle’s hooves into her own. “Look, I'm going to tell you why I'm doing this. Okay? This isn't exactly a secret, well… not anymore. You see, we live in a very, very magical land, Twilight. Equestria isn't dead as long we ponies still call this land our home. But we must remain happy. That snow outside is not meant to be there, when the ponies of Equestria aren't happy, and turn to anger and sadness. A terrible winter comes from the creatures our ancestors used to call… windigos! Now these horrible little parasites create this cold, cold winter because when we don't have food, or sunlight, ponies get cranky. Now it's going to keep snowing, it's going to snow until snow banks cover every home and not even the pegasi can crack the overcast. Until everypony is dead, Twilight. But… there is a way to prevent that.” Cake let go of her hooves and got up from the table and moved her seat right beside Twinkle. At this point the lavender unicorn hardly noticed as she was washed in terrible, terrible memories, stiff in shock. Cake leaned in close to her, lifting her head up to whisper into her ear. “They feed on bad emotions. If you don't feel anything, they can't feed, and they can't fuel the eternal winter. All the better, you can feel happy again, if you just forget and try to build that new life!” Cake waited for her to show a reaction. To show something. Twilight just looked down at her hooves. Cake had overdone it far too much it seemed. She pushed the unicorn to face her and, with one quick lick of her lips, leaned in and kissed her.  Twinkle’s train of thought came to a crashing halt as she felt her lips collide with Cake’s. Was this how she was going to erase her mind? Was this how she was going to suck her brain from her head and lick it clean!? Cake pulled away from the kiss as smiled at her.  “Not sorry, I stopped pretending to be a hero a long time ago. Anyways, I think I'm going to finally swap you out with Moondancer. You’ll be happier in Ponyville.” Cake laughed as she stood back up and took another swig from Twinkle’s water.  “Y- you! Why did you just… eww!” Twinkle spat onto the floor. Cake didn't put her tongue into her mouth but her breath was still horrid. And she didn't want to be kissed by this evil short little pony, let alone one so evil as to not brush their teeth.   “Hey, the only other way to break your trance was to pour the water over your head. It's like.. Science or something. An unmovable object needs to collide with an unstoppable force. Unwanted kissing works wonders for breaking someone out of a post traumatic recollection of their memories.” Cake shrugged. “Actually it doesn't, I'm lying to you even though I said I wouldn't… I just wanted to kiss you. Never got the chance to win you over before you decided. ‘Oh boo hoo all my friends are dead, might as well kill myself and become basically a zombie’” Cake mocked as she raised a hoof up too her head and closed her eyes dramatically. “You could have at least been happy about it you know…”  “I- I asked for this?” Twinkle asked, holding her hooves close to her chest.  “Everypony did! All of you were too sad and miserable to face it. What we had done to survive. Everypony else either left Equestria or… headed south with Red Wagon or east with the crusaders if they were young enough to be able to rebuild their lives. Staying here, in our heartland, with the skeletons and rubble… it was too hard on them.” Cake finished the bottle of water in one last swig and tossed it in the trash can in a fit of anger. “I gave everything I had to try and give all of you new lives. But you just keep remembering! And then, when you do, you ask me to make you forget again. What am I supposed to do… What would you have me do, right now?” Twinkle was falling back into it again, she felt like she was spinning, maybe Cake’s breath was really starting to hit her now as the feeling of acid started to build in the back of her throat. “I… I get it. We can't stay happy with whatever we had done, and if you don't watch over us we are all going to get ourselves killed.”  “That's the concept of it. Now, the sun is going to rise soon, and I have a… unexpected factor to clean up. Any last questions Twilight?” Cake asked  “Why didn't you choose to forget, if it was so horrible… what happened to us?” Twilight’s face turned into a scowl, she felt horribly sick, on top of just generally being exhausted from being awake all night.  Cake laughed, loudly. “Because I never got to see that life that you had all lost so carelessly in your pursuits of peace and laying down and taking it, Twilight. I was seeing war long before the Nightmare Moon, years before Daybreaker. I had already killed so many ponies, zebras, griffons… all before the Changelings pushed past Acornage. I never once felt disgusted for a moment as I snuck past their lines to fire bomb their homes in the night. I never felt lesser than who I was when I ordered my soldiers to shoot the ones who tried to surrender to us. Because you, oh protege, may not remember who made me. Who forged us to be evil to protect that life you had. Celestia did that.” She paused for a moment, almost hating saying the name.  “I never got a chance to be a filly, or to dance and sing in the streets. I was too busy learning how to properly prepare and cook the meat of my fallen enemies so I wouldn't starve if I was behind lines. Or, how to make improvised explosives, the kind that sticks to the skin and burns until there's nothing left." Twinkle wasn't even listening at this point, she was holding onto the table for support, trying to stop the spinning. If she had eaten anything more than the croissant the day before it would have come out of her mouth by now. “That was all I wanted! I wanted to be a pony too… I wanted to have foals one day! I would bring forward eternal night if Nightmare Moon would have taken me, but she wouldn't! I would have burned a million heretics for Daybreaker, but no! I was a filthy traitor; I was a disgusting Apple! So, she exiled me to the southern states!” Twinkle lost her grip and slumped forward, dry heaving onto the table. “I killed them. I killed them all. It was me alone, I stormed Canterlot. I ordered bombers to fly over Manehattan until there was nothing left. I gave Daffodilly the green light to bring that cobalt bomb to Vesapolis…”  Cake felt little tears start to form in her eyes as she pulled the crown out from her saddle bags. She held it in her magic looking at herself through the single purple gem in the center. She stared at the broken monster Infront of her and the tears falling down its cheeks. She didn't fight them off, she didn't even blink. She wanted to throw the crown at the wall, but she knew it wouldn't break. She wanted to bash it onto the table, but she knew it wouldn't bend. She wanted to put it on, but she knew it wouldn't fit. She placed it back into her saddle bags and turned to leave the library as Twinkle slowly fell from her chair, passed out onto the wooden kitchen floor.   “Wake up, Wake the fuck up!” Cake shouted as she started kicking the sleeping ponies still snoozing in their bags.  “Guh, what the hell Cake, you said at first light!” Yellow screamed, she was really getting tired of the terrible mood Cake seemed to be permanently stuck in and taking it out onto them.  “The clouds are too thick, have you seen the sky recently? I checked the clock on- look it's time to get up. We still have a few miles to go!” Cake kicked Tide Turner who rolled over.  “The clock in the town center isn't done yet, Tool Belt hasn't… Cake, where did you see a working clock?” Yellow prodded.  Cake grunted. “I don't have time for you two right now, get up or you can stay behind and let the buffalo ruin two years of hard work if you want! Snow doesn't taste so bad when you get frostbite on your tongue!”  Tide Turner opened his eyes and picked himself up, Yellow cursed under her breath as she threw off her unzipped sleeping bag and got up onto her hooves. “It’s still pitch black out?” Tide commented as he shook off the snow.  “We don't have time to re-pack. We will gather up everything when this is over. We need to reset the sites, deal with the buffalo, then… hope the clouds clear up and we can make some changes and re-try.” Cake sounded shaky in her voice, Yellow nodded and looked around trying to get a sense of direction.  “Cake, when was the last time you had some sleep?” Yellow asked.  “A few hours ago?” Cake gave her a strange look.  “That was less than an hour, and you woke up screaming! How long has it been since you have had a full night's sleep?” Yellow prodded again.  “It was... When you showed up at my cabin. You slept on my cot; I slept on the floor. Then we both left in the morning.” Cake turned away and started to trot through the thick snow, Yellow noticed the still fresh hoof prints pointing to Daffodilia. “Site zero is just a few miles, if we start now, we can get there in an hour and turn the heat on, get some water, and wait for the buffalo to come to us!”  Yellow didn't comment on the prints and focused on the allure of some heating and warm food as she followed behind Tide Turner who was dragging himself through the snow behind their commander.